The strike team proceeded unchallenged to the city then through to the ComStar complex. They found the compound guarded by the expected point of five elementals in Elemental Medium Battle Armour, and were ambushed by two unexpected points (each of five) elementals in Corona Heavy Battle Armour.

None of the enemy elementals gave a chance for negotiation, as they were under the false impression that they were dealing with Inner Sphere barbarians who would not fight honourably and were deploying a Battlemech against a civilian facility. The Elemental troopers fought desperately but resolutely and four were felled by the Gargoyle’s and the fifth downed (but not slain) by a kick from the Assault Battlemech.

Michelle attempted to intervene and follow normal Clan protocols but ultimately failed due to the misconceptions on the defenders, and finally dragged the survivor away to safety.

The Corona troopers engaged Jacque and were sniped at by Ruin, while attempting to bring down the battlemech. Between the two points they managed to damage but not fell the battlemech before being subdued by EMP ordinance, and the attacks of the Hellstorm suits and the battlemech.

Following the battle Samara detected a panicked transmission from Technician Peter to Star Captain Dayna Malthus, complete with security camera footage of the assault on the compound. Sounds of panic were heard in the background of the transmission so Samara and Ruin chose to advance on foot (in powered armour) to take hold of the situation.

The team found Scientist Brent Tesla who they talked down (from his attempt to flee the complex) and once he had calmed and accepted them as the new warrior caste leaders he led them to the communications control center. Tesla proved to be very welcoming to the ‘Clan Hellions’ personnel, and helped reign in the other clan personnel.

Ruin used the PA system to explain the situation to the ComStar and Clan staff running about the facility, unfortunately by giving his name this further panicked the ComStar staff who believed Ruin was ‘The Destroyer’. This resulted in a fanatic but ineffectual attempt on his life by a knife wielding maniac (who could not penetrate Ruin’s power armour. A later attempt to tackle and then kung-fu (movie style) Ruin followed.

In contrast to the ComStar personnel, the Clan personnel were very helpful (and competent, and sane) and fell into line under their new military leaders. Similarly the new style of doing things presented by Samara and expertly assisted by Ruin impressed them and increased their favour in the eyes of the liberated clan non-combatants.

The clan taskforce was comprised of a series of teams:

The Operations Team, ten Scientist Caste and ten of the Technician Caste. These (under Tesla) were responsible for running the communications and manage the colony infrastructure.

The Utilities Team, twenty Labourer Caste tasked to assist the Operations Team and maintain the facility.

The Inspection Group from the Merchant Caste which was three Merchant Caste and their two Labourer Caste assistants serving as retainers.

One unexpected bonus was that one of the Merchant Caste was an artist, where the Merchant Caste was the caste that most clan artists best fit into. Merchant (or Artist) Kevin Forbes, who was freeborn. His talents were being used for video production and choreography. In his off time however he pursues whatever artistic forms he can, favouring drawing and painting.

Having secured the facility, Samara and Ruin communicated with various Lyran and Davion authorities, and reported their success back to the Harbinger and the captured clan dropship.

The campaign is now using GarethTech modified rules and overhauled design rules. Deisngs have been re-worked to the new system, see GT Designs.

25/05/3050. Day 183
The group rested before Samara Hellstrom started organising her forces to draw out and defeat the other Clan Jade Falcon ‘mech. Her plan was to attempt to challenge the clan pilot using the newly captured Gargoyle, with Adept VII-Epsilon Yuuki Yamada’s Crab hidden nearby incase it was needed. Samara chose a flooded marsh, which was currently dry and mostly clear of trees, located roughly 80km from Peridot city.

The clan pilot, Point Commander June, responded to the communication from the formerly allied battlemech and headed to the coordinates Samara had provided. Unbeknownst to the Hellions, June had contacted her commander Star Captain Dayna Malthus to inform her of the challenge and that she would contact again following her victory.

Point Commander June arrived in her Hellbringer and carrying five Elemental warriors in Elemental Medium Battle Armour. Samara and June bargained, which June referred to as “batchall” and determining the terms of the fight and the prize for the winner. This turned out to be the loser’s ‘mech and the defeated pilot would become the other’s bondsman (like Point Commander Ivan had). The Elementals started to spread out around the edge of the flooded marsh, the “Circle of Equals” for this “Trial of Possession”.

It turned out that Samara’s tactics and skill were enough to win the day without the intervention of the Crab, the terrain she had chosen and the size of the field of engagement advantaged the heavy hitting but closer-ranged weapons of her Gargoyle, nicknamed the “Fugly” and disadvantaged the long-range weaponry of the Hellbringer. Point Commander June had been foolish to assume she was more skilled than the freebirth challenger and that her skill would overcome this disadvantage.

In the final moment of the duel Samara got behind her opponent, finishing her with one shot into the back of the ’mech and then a final blow deliberately to the back of the knee, felling the Hellbringer. The Gargoyle had only suffered armour damage, but more critically Samara had used most of its small load of SRMs.

The bodyguard of Elementals looked on with confusion, not having expected their assigned mechwarrior to be defeated and for their ride back to the city to be felled and claimed by the enemy. Samara ordered them over and narrowly avoided landing herself in a challenge to the lead elemental, but managed to prompt a challenge between Jacques Dubois and the Elemental leader Point Commander James.

James and Jacque dismounted their battle armour and negotiated, as they sized each other up. James read that Jacque wasn’t going to use his cybernetic hand (as a unfair advantage) and prepared to also refrain from using his own right hand (in the spirit of equality and fairness) then Jacque came up with an idea to try a modified Dual au Mouchier where each would hold one end of the bondcord with their right hand and the loser would be the first to lose hold of the cord.

The fight was a good one, with both trying to learn the style of fighting and manoeuvring with the cord connecting them. Most of the fight was spent brawling on the ground and trying to push one another to the limit. Finally Jacque’s skill (and the guidance of the moose) let him lay low the bigger and stronger Elemental trooper. Once he came to, James accepted his defeat with good grace and sportsmanship, accepting the bondcord and Jacque as his bondholder. James’ squad of elementals would follow his lead, in a limbo-area where they were not defeated and not acting like they needed to become bonsdmen but were now loyal to Jacques Dubois and the Hellions.

Of the Elementals, Snow appeared to be a replacement, she was younger than the others and the others bore the familial similarities of being of the same ‘sibko’ of trueborns.

Samara Hellstrom had Ruin Dmitar organise the withdrawal of the still undetected Crab then Ruin returned to Samara. Meanwhile Samara ordered the captured clan personnel to repair the Hellbringer sufficiently for it to be walked back to the Harbinger, which would take roughly 90 minutes.

The clan personnel were helpful and un-trecherous, and got put to work patching up the Gargoyle and starting repairs on the Hellbringer. Unfortunately the Hellions had a severe shortage of ’mech parts on Malachite, their battlemechs and battlemech supplies were in space still with the warship and dropships.

Point Commander Ivan reported to his bondholder Ruin Dmitar to inform him that they could patch the Gargoyle‘s armour well (by scavenging the Hellbringer’s), that it had plenty of remaining autocannon ammunition, but the main problem was they couldn’t re-load the SRM launchers which were nearly out. A total of three reloads were transferred from the Hellbringer’s remaining SRM load but that only brought the two SRMs of the Gargoyle to roughly half capacity.

Checking with the Harbinger’s crew, Samara found that the orbiting clan dropship and its aerospace fighter compliment would be passing to the far side of the planet in twelve hours and that would be the best time to launch an operation. That gave time to patch up the Gargoyle and for the team to get rest.

Equipped with his stealth enhanced Nighthawk Mk3 power armour, Ruin Dmitar warily and carefully approached the dropship and found two of its five ramps (on the far side from where Star Captain Dayna Malthus was making her stand) were open and each led to a double ’mech bay. He spotted a new type of Clan Battle Armour, massive Gnome suit troopers were on-guard (but casual). Luckily for Ruin these elementals were on-guard for forces of battlemechs and battle suits, not lightly armoured covert operatives. The Gnome Elementals were also distracted by the imminent duel, and since the hostile forces had announced themselves they were on lower alert.

Hauptmann Samara Hellstrom trashed talked Star Captain Dayna Malthus, reinforcing Malthus’ assumption this was an upstart Inner Sphere barbarian. The two bargained that the winner would win the other’s ‘mech, but though the defeated pilot becoming a bondsman was standard practice that wasn’t spelt out. Unbeknownst to the Hellions, Malthus had some contingency orders in place in the Dropship.

The dual began, with Malthus and Hellstrom being equally matched as pilots. Malthus manoeuvred her Summoner away, trying to keep range on the Gargoyle so its close range arsenal would be disadvantaged and her mixed arsenal including longer ranged weapons would have an edge. Samara advancer her Gargoyle resolutely, under cover of its anti-missile systems, to bring her heavy autocannons to bear. Both pilots exchanged fire, blasting through the other ’mechs armour at roughly the same time. The brutal dual raged on, with the Gargoyle gaining the upper hand as it closed to optimal range for its autocannons. Malthus tried to charge to bring some of her support-weapons to bear, but her Summonerwas cored by two final autocannon shells and fell backward to the ground.

The moment she fell, the dropship prepared to lift off.

Meanwhile Ruin Dmitar hot-wired the security system of one of the lifts and headed for the bridge. The dropship engines were powering up. He reached the bridge, to discover a third phenotype of clan trueborns, the as-yet unseen aerospace pilots. These warriors were wiry and child-sized, with disproportionately large eyes. As their leader went for his sidearm, Ruin used his power armour to spring forward and subdue him with a flurry of precision blows. The remaining crew looked on, stunned. Ruin ordered them to cut the engines and they obeyed, then Ruin noticed blinking red lights of a silent alarm.

Expecting the gnome troopers to storm the bridge, Ruin ordered the dropship bridge crew out, occupying the lifts and blocking the elemental troopers access, temporarily. On the way out one gestured to the unconscious form of Star Captain Declan and mouthed ‘run’ to Ruin, motivated by gratitude that this Inner Sphere barbarian hadn’t just opened fire and killed them all with the power armour scale weapon he was carrying.

Samara Hellstrom pulled back her forces away from the dropship, knowing the damage that would inflict on nearby units. Star Captain Dayna Malthus’s retinue of Gnome elementals withdrew from the ship toward their fallen leader, and once there it appeared Samara had chosen not to claim Malthus as a bondsmen. After a moment of confusion the gnomes helped Malthus out of the cockpit and the group of six withdrew toward the tree line.

Battle Suit weapon fire started sounding within the dropship, as Ruin Dmitar exfiltrated via an emergency escape hatch, carrying the unconscious Star Captain. A crowd of sixty people in clan uniforms fled the dropship, followed by ten Gnome troopers who (once the crowd were clear) opened fire on Samara Hellstrom’s Gargoyle. After an exchange of fire, with the Gnomes LRMs proving ineffective and a careful demonstration of the ’mechs autocannons, Samara was able to order their surrender. The elementals complied and saw to their wounded companion. The dropship crew fell into line, which military force they were supporting made no difference to them, and went a long way to explaining how clan society managed to function.

It turned out the Gnomes had scuttled the dropship by blasting its fusion reactor, leaving it immobilised (and unpowered). Ironically this suited the Hellions needs perfectly as all the supplies were captured intact, along with the (unpowered) repair facilities. This left neither side with ’mech transport capabilities on the planet.

Samara Hellstrom ordered the Harbinger to relocate there and planned to try to use the smaller vessel’s power plan to partially re-power the dropship’s facilities. The plan was to get the Gargoyle repaired first while the Crab stood guard, followed by the Hellbringer and finally the newly captured Summoner.

This left the Hellions with the task of liberating the city, and its garrison force of elementals.

Plans to re-launch the former Draconis jumpship DCS Hi No Kaze were in full swing, with the intention this too would come under the Hauptmann’s command. Two rival plans were in place, each with their own risks. First was to attempt a KF-Jump from the planet’s surface despite the gravitational interference. Second was to attempt to lift the ship into orbit using booster rockets.

The handing over of the Draconis Combine captives was conducted, after Hauptmann Samara Hellstrom got the cooperative Draconis Combine communications officer from the dropship signed up with her Gray Death Legion allies. To preserve her family’s honour she hacked the records to fake her own death, before beginning her new life with the Gray Death Legion mercenary company.

Adept VI-Iota Michelle Abnett began a program of additional training of PAL and Battle Armour cadets as part of Special Project 17. Over the following days she gave the cadets crash course in suit use, augmented-infantry tactics, ground operations and a crash course in space operations. Unlike the advanced class (now graduates) following Professor Anna Morozov and the Hellions, this was a larger class being trained for the AFFS.

Jacques Dubois decided against visiting his uncle Laurent and the family logging plantation.

Samara Hellstrom had possibly the strangest experience after returning to Strata with an earnest yet awkward invitation from Professor Anna Morozov to meet with her family. Over dinner she introduced her commanding officer to her ‘brother’ Doctor Cayden Morozov and ‘sister’ Engineer Vivian Morozov, but revealed that was only a cover story due to the unusually long lifespans of Trueborns. The truth was Anna was truly Star Commander Janice, a defector from Clan Jade Falcon, and that Cayden was formerly Scientist Cormac also of Clan Jade Falcon. Both had suffered misfortunes ending their careers in the warrior caste and then defected after forming an illicit romantic relationship. Vivian was really their daughter. The professor had moved her family to Strata because she thought it would be the safest place for them, wether the clan invasion succeeded or failed. The hidden purpose of the meeting was to impress upon the Hauptmann that she’d thrown her lot in fully with the Inner Sphere.

Balancing the risks of the two plans Samara Hellstrom eventually chose to attempt the surface-to-space jump as this would theoretically cause less risk to the solar sails of the jumpship. She took the Harbinger and a minimal compliment to attempt the KF-Jump operation without risking any additional lives. All personnel within 30 km of the ship were evacuated in preparation for the jump.

Ruin Dmitar took the helm and plotted a course to minimise the risks, and due to this the ship avoided any damage but did overshoot the mark of jumping into orbit of Strata.

20/04/3050. Day 148
An urgent call came through from Hpt. General Lucius Morgan ordering the Hellions to investigate the Lyran world Malachite which had gone silent and was in the path of the Clan Occupation Zone. Samara Hellstrom accepted the orders but insisted she needed a minimum of two more days to prepare.

Once the Erebus returned to Strata orbit the Asphodel and Charon docked and the ship was loaded with supplies and the remnants of the crew.

The Jumpship was capable of 30 lightyear jumps, and though each jump was effectively instantaneous the ship required six to nine days at each star to recharge the drive. The five jump passage would unfortunately necessitate a full month of travel.

20/05/3050. Day 178
The Erebus arrived in the Cusset system and detected two dropships on Planet Malachite. One was in orbit and one in close proximity to the capital, Peridot city.

On the way to the city the augmented infantry team were dogged by an unusual battlemech with five strange battle armour troopers aboard. It was a heavy Battlemech with strong electronic warfare capabilities. Unfortunately they had neglected to bring Point Commander Michelle who could have identified them, but fortunately they did not for the hostile units were of Clan Jade Falcon to which Michelle of Clan Wolf had a bitter enmity towards, and vice versa. After two close misses the hostile ’mech moved out of the area, possibly seeking some other target or returning to a normal patrol route.

Ruin Dmitar snuck forward and discovered another enemy ’mech guarding the city, but had apparently deployed its contingent of Battle Armour troopers as a city garrison (and occupation force). This was an assault Battlemech but fortunately with less advanced electronic warfare capabilities. Ruin proceeded to the cities HPG Station and discovered a wrecked Com Guard Battlemech there and other signs of combat.

After Ruin Dmitar exfiltrated the city and reporting to Samara Hellstrom, the scouting force began to withdraw back to the Harbinger. As they did the assault battlemech moved out towards their position, but then veered off. Passing close by the concealed augmented infantry force allowed pursuit.

Ruin Dmitar took the lead, sneaking up behind the clan ’mech and scaled it using the hand-holds mounted on it to transport elementals, elementals it had left behind in the city. The ’mech pilot seemed unused to the danger of augmented infantry attack such as this, having relied upon his guard team of elementals for protection and allowing him to focus on ’mech to ’mech battles. He also appeared focused upon his quarry as Ruin hacked the electronic lock on the hatch and dropped an EMP grenade into the cockpit. As the ’mech lost control due to the grenade, Ruin subdued the pilot and awaited the arrival of the rest of the scouting party.

Once the ‘mech systems had re-initialised, Samara Hellstrom took control of the prize, only to discover an incoming hostile battlemech. This turned out to be Adept VII-Epsilon Yuuki Yamada and her Crab battlemech, who mistook Samara’s call to stand down as a trick and opened fire. Samara not returning fire convinced the Adept of Samara’s sincerity, however.

Following the battle, Hauptmann Samara Hellstrom began working on a list of loose ends that required her attention.

First was the interrogation of the captives. The conscious survivors included the Gray Death Legion defector Jonathan Salomon, and three of the Draconis Combine pilots.

Jonathan Salomon was under the impression he was protected by the articles of war, and offered to exchange information (such as the employer of the Scholz Streikende mercenary company) in exchange for various deals.

The three Draconis Combine pilots only gave their ranks in the DCMS and claimed to be “Wu Ming”, meaning ‘nameless’. None broke and offered further information, in particular the location of their dropship or if there were any remaining DCMS forces on Atlantia (such as the ‘missing’ 12th battlemech).

Finally unravelling the encoding, Mouse determined that Kaptain Franz Berger was behind the hiring of the Scholz Streikende and setting them upon Hauptmann Samara Hellstrom. It appeared his intention was to use a mercenary company (keeping his hands clean-ish) to dent Samara’s reputation, since her success reflected poorly upon his own career-history.

Next Hauptmann Samara Hellstrom contacted the Gray Death Legion dropship to make a deal with Captain Aleksander Hansen. She had him over a barrel and they both knew it. She negotiated a deal in which that branch of the Gray Death Legion would take a long term contract to guard Fort Vigilance in exchange for the return of their captured equipment and some additional funds. This provided a pool of pilots (and some ’mechs) to man the battlemechs that had been captured and allocated to garrison duty.

Samara also intended to relocate the battle armour testing and war-games to the vicinity around Fort Vigilance, so relocating the Gray Death Legion was important to that plan as well.

Captain Aleksander Hansen’s estimate was that the damaged dropship (the Charon) would be sufficiently patched that it could make a low orbital flight in about twelve hours time. Adding an extra 50% for Safety, Samara requested they try to time their arrival for 6pm the following day.

03/04/3050. Day 131, 02:30

As Ruin Dmitar and Jacques Dubois approached the HPG Outpost, Adept IX-Epsilon Bryce Alexander and his lancemate came under attack by the ‘missing’ DCMS battlemech, a Grasshopper. The Draconis Combine pilot was forced to act by the approaching reinforcements, and needed to quickly eliminate the Raven since capturing it was now out of the question.

In the short engagement Ruin scored three (for three) long range gauss cannon hits into the rear torso of the battlemech, badly damaging its engine and gyro, and allowing Bryce to use his battlemech’s manoeuvrability and finish off the much larger ’mech. Two medium laser hits completed the destruction of the gyroscope and engine, leaving the battlemech face down in the woods beside the HPG station.

Following this, the DCMS pilot was retrieved and the ComStarr personnel were ‘escorted’ back to Fort Vigilance.

03/04/3050. Day 131, 06:00

Ruin, Jacque and the ComStarr personnel arrived back at Fort Vigilance. Samara was woken and the prisoner was interrogated by Samara and Ruin. Unlike the other DCMS pilots, they got some information from him, including his rank (Tai-i), and his name was Hiroshi Mou. He was an electronic warfare officer specialising as a forward-observer. Mou confirmed they were on-planet to recover the AFFS Raven, having expected it but not expected the ComStar Raven to be present on Atlantia. He would not reveal the location of their dropship, however.

03/04/3050. Day 131, 07:00

Ruin and Samara realized they had all the pieces then needed for a simple ruse to trap the dropship. Ruin impersonated Mou and using one of the captured DCMS battlemechs he reported a victory and ordered the dropship to relocate to the base to retrieve the battlemechs (including damaged battlemechs). Samara had her battlemech pilots take the helm of the operational battlemechs and some of the industrialmech pilots to take over the more damaged units. The Hellstorm equipped troopers secreted themselves about the battlemechs (mostly in the holes blown into the various machines).

This gave some time for Ruin and Jacque to get some rest before the dropship was due to arrive.

03/04/3050. Day 131, 14:00

When the union-class dropship arrived, the ’mechs borded and then released the battle armour troopers and a matching ultimatum.

The dropship crew surrendered and took cover, but a platoon of infantry defending the ship put up a brave but hopeless fight. Unfortunately due to a lapse of discipline one of the Hellstorm operators used excessive force against the defenders, killing five and injuring seven with a blaze of machine gun fire.

Samara Hellstrom made a point of telling the communications officer of the dropship not to feel bad about being tricked, because Ruin Dmitar was so good at what he does.

03/04/3050. Day 131, 15:30

Professor Anna Morozov sought out Hauptmann Samara Hellstrom for a clanestine meeting. She revealed that CLASSIFIED and due to that she knew that CLASSIFIED and also CLASSIFIED. She confirmed CLASSIFIED and revealed that the reason the clan invasion was not being reported was an alliance between ComStar and Clan Wolf, and by extension possibly benefitting the Wolf’s Dragoons as well.

Samara requested Morozov attempt to create a hardened armour equivalent for PAL. She also informed Professor Morozov that Ingrid ‘Mouse’ Marsh and Ruin Dmitar both possessed information about HPG technology and HPG operation, and that the Professor should avail herself of their expertise and attempt to study under them. Professor Morozov was understandably eager and excited by the prospect at acquiring forbidden lore.

The stance of ComStar was that as part of the HPG network which ComStar own, the HPG station was thus ComStar property. Samara Hellstrom countered that the station was Federated Suns property to which Bryce countered that if the HPG station were isolated from the network (and thus useless) the Federated Suns could own it completely, but for it to be connected and useful it would require a ComStar staff, and dealing with the order would likely require ComStar take ownership of the equipment.

Samara next grilled Bryce about the ComStar and Clan Wolf alliance, of which he knew nothing. He also seemed to know nothing of the media-blackout about the invasion, and in fact was disgusted by the idea that ComStar was concealing information and abusing its monopoly on interstellar communication (other than jumpship traffic). Yhe only news regarding clan movements thus=far being which worlds have gone silent and what reports arrive by jump-ships scouting the Clan Occupation Zone. It appeared that the Com Guard had been kept in the dark about the alliance between ComStar and Clan Wolf.

Adept IX-Epsilon Bryce Alexander agreed on ComStar operation of the AtlantiaHPG facility with AFFS security (only) and shared ownership in the short term. This deal was possible due to Bryce’s faith and trust in ComStar having been damaged by the revelation of the secret alliance.

03/04/3050. Day 131, 17:15

Continuing her masquerade as Adept VI-Iota Michelle Abnett, she confessed to her good friend Jacques Dubois how (in her perception) she had nearly compromised Samara’s plan to have Ruin pilot a ’mech that the Scholz Streikende would not be expecting, and to sow confusion in their ranks. She understood the need to not inform her, for operational security and also that the Hellstorm suit she was using would have revealed the location of the Steel Horse stealth ’mech Ruin was using in place of his normal ride the Koter KTR-1G.

03/04/3050. Day 131, 17:50

The Charon touched down at the makeshift landing zone above Fort Vigilance, joining the dropship assigned to the Diplomatic Mission and the captured Draconis Combine battlemechs. The four industrialmechs brought with the Diplomatic Mission to aid in the rebuilding of Fort Vigilance were deployed to assist the repair of the Charon.

The productive if awkward interview that followed focused upon multiple key problems with Michelle’s conduct and her integration with the [[Hellstrom’s Hellions]]. Michelle took the constructive criticism on board, and mentioned Ruin had voiced many of these issues previously. This developed into a discussion of the organisations Michelle had worked for before and the ways that Clan Wolf, the Wolf’s Dragoons then the Com Guard of ComStar had in no way prepared her for operating within a comparatively ‘normal’ organisation such as the AFFS.

Michelle was further grilled on the topic of the clan genetic engineering, including that Elementals like Michelle were trained (and conditioned) to protect and follow Trueborn Mechwarriors, such as (by default) Ruin. Michelle was an oddity as a sneaky Elemental, and understood Samara’s message that her body-guarding of Ruin was interfering with his sneaky endeavours. Michelle revealed that it was an enormous relief to her that Samara and Ruin were unlike the clan Mechwarriors who rose to command based primarily on gunnery skill.

In general Michelle appeared to agree that the Clan way might work for the Clans isolated in Clan Space but it had no place in the Inner Sphere, and that was the reason the Wolf’s Dragoons did not support the invasion.

One core reason that Samara did not trust Clan Wolf or the Wolf’s Dragoons (or ComStar) was the organisations claimed to have benevolent motives but refused to share their technological secrets. Since it had been revealed that the Clans maintained HPG technology and could manufacture KF-drives, two technologies that were provided solely by ComStar in the inner sphere, Samara asked Michelle to have the Dragoons make those technologies available. The seemed to almost blind-side Point Commander Michelle, as if the idea had never even occurred to her or her peers. She promised to do what she could to set up some information sharing along those lines.

Samara shared her information, regarding the actions of Kaptain Franz Berger and how he was behind the Scholz Streikende and their betrayal of the Gray Death Legion from within, and also responsible for the Draconis Combine attack on Atlantia. Franz had attempted to have Dieter act against Samara, which he had refused, and tried to pressure Dieter into securing the release of the Scholz Streikende, which he also refused. Franz Berger was one of the many Lyran social generals whom Dieter enjoyed frustrating and sabotaging as best he could.

Samara went on to explain the situation with the clans and the alliance between ComStar and Clan Wolf and the opposition of Clan Wolf to the other invading clans. Hpt. Kommandant Dieter Herrman appeared to know nothing of this, but Lt. General Elisa Hayes seemed to have some knowledge of the situation and of the need to prepare defences against the clan threat. The possibility that presenting groups like the dragoons and the apparently sympathetic Clan Wolf was an attempt to get on the good side of Inner Sphere powers (like the Federated Suns) was discussed at length.

While the support pilots scrambled, Samara Hellstrom led her lance into action. Rather than piloting the KOTOR and Peromyscus, Samara had assigned Ruin and Mouse to the Steel Horse and Summer Rain respectively. Ken and Barclay were en-route in the Kotor and Peromyscus.

The incoming hostiles were approaching from the upper side of the base, not the lower side where the Zmey was stationed.

Initially the Scholz Streikende focused upon Ken Tyler, assuming Ruin Dmitar would be piloting the Koter KTR-1G. Ruin Dmitar fired upon the Assassin ASN-30, taking off its arm then boasting his achievement and true location to the mercenaries. This caused them to shift focus to him, letting Ruin successfully divert them while the others dealt with the Draconis Combine forces. Dealing with the Draconis was a opportunity Jacques Dubois relished, eagerly and brutally.

Slower moving Draconis Combine forces took the field late in the battle, four assault battlemechs using a new technology, a C3 network.

Cyclops CP-11-C.

Hatamoto-Chi HTM-28T.

Hatamoto-Chi HTM-28T.

Hatamoto-Chi HTM-28T.

The combined efforts of the Hellions, and a last minute dynamic landing by Hpt. Kommandant Dieter Herrman and his Zeus ZEU-9S2 onto a Hatamoto-Chi HTM-28T succeeded in neutralising the three waves of hostile forces during the protracted battle. They took the surviving pilots captive and salvaged their battlemechs as Captured Assets.

02/04/3050. Day 130, 21:45

Repair work began on the lightly damaged battlemechs, those only requiring armour replacement. These were scheduled for completion before midnight. This included some captured units. The more heavily damaged Kotor, Steel Horse, and Summer Rain were put in for repairs and due for completion the following day (03/04/3050). The downed enemy battlemechs were slated in for repairs following that, beginning with the most easily repaired. Those too severely damaged for repairs (or otherwise not worth the effort) were to be loaded into the dropship along with salvaged new technologies to be sent to the Strata Institute of Science for reverse engineering.

Unfortunately Ruin was unexpectedly active, and discovered the elemental as she was distracted while covering her tracks in the computer. Ruin repeated his disapproval (presumably for getting caught) and set her up to learn more about AFFS protocol from Jacques Dubois of all people. This may have been an attempt at match-making, but resulted in the pair bonding as friends and sparring partners instead.

23/03/3050. Day 120, 08:00

Hauptmann Samara Hellstrom was informed that a Diplomatic Mission was being sent to Planet Atlantia in response to the Hauptmann’s request. The diplomatic team would include representatives of the factions Samara had requested and included additional staff, equipment and supplies for the rebuilding of Fort Vigilance.

23/03/3050. Day 120, 10:00

To increase security, Ruin Dmitar suggested to Samara Hellstrom that they use Michelle to request Wolf’s Dragoons elementals as guards. Since Michelle had informed them that Fort Vigilance was a holy site to the clans. Samara agreed and they had Michelle summon the ‘star’ of elementals commanded by Star Commander Erica Leroux. The elementals came, equipped with formidable Grenadier IID suits of assault class battle armour.

Sensing something amiss, and practicing standard precautionary sweeps before the Diplomatic Mission arrived, Ruin Dmitar searched the base and focused upon areas of weakness able to cause the greatest damage. In one of these areas he found demolitions charges capable of re-opening the large crack in The Bunker and collapsing it on top of The Vault.

Forensic testing revealed a DNA trace. He informed Hauptmann Samara Hellstrom and upon checking the DNA against the records of the Hellstrom’s Hellions personnel revealed a perfect match for Subaltern Simon Croft, the gunner for the LRM system of the Zmey (and an expert in munitions and demolitions).

Subaltern Simon Croft was rendered unconscious and could not be interrogated before the landing, due in six hours.

31/03/3050. Day 128, 11:00

During the descent of the dropship Trafalga, Ingrid ‘Mouse’ Marsh received a communique from the Atlantia Military Base reporting a suspiciously timed failure of their long range tracking capabilities. Moments later the Gray Death Legion sent a similar message, a distress call reporting their dropship’s sensors had been destroyed by explosives. After that transmission the dropship Charon could no longer be contacted. The Wolf’s Dragoons dropship could not be raised.

Disruption of a planet’s tracking capabilities was known as a precursor to conceal the landing of hostile dropships. It appeared the landing site or sites were not in the vicinity of Atropos continent.

31/03/3050. Day 128, 11:15

The Trafalgar landed safely in the prepared landing zone in the meteor devastated crater above The Bunker of Fort Vigilance. As expected, the interference caused by re-entry had blinded the Trafalgar’s sensors.

The Wolf’s Dragoons dropship re-established communications to report that ground units equipped with powerful jamming gear had temporarily disabled their sensors and communications and then evaded pursuit.

Adept IX-Epsilon Bryce Alexander and Adept III-Epsilon Paul Thornton also deployed in their battlemechs and attempted to head out to the Atropos continent HPG station but were ordered back ‘in the spirit of cooperation’ by Hauptmann Samara Hellstrom, to assist with securing the area during the alert.

31/03/3050. Day 128, 11:30

With the available VTOL on patrol, and the combined sensor capability of the Zmey and Trafalgar, Hauptmann Samara Hellstrom lowered the alert status to yellow and invited the diplomats to return their battlemechs to the Trafalgar and receive a tour of Fort Vigilance, insisting on it in the case of the ComStar personnel.

Hauptmann Samara Hellstrom, Lt. General Elisa Hayes and Hpt. Kommandant Dieter Herrman gathered in The Vault to dine together away from the lower officers and the enlisted. Samara gave a comprehensive yet sanitised version of the events leading to the discovery of Fort Vigilance, omitting the discovery of the Clotho continent HPG station but admitting the discovery of the Atropos continent HPG station and how the information from that station led the Hellions expedition to discover the fortress ruins.

31/03/3050. Day 128, 20:00

Star Commander Erica Leroux challenged Jacques Dubois to a rematch. When he went to the area of The Vault set aside for them, Point Commander Ryan manipulated Jacque and in the eyes of the elementals the challenge had turned into a Trial of Position.

Displaying formidable aptitude and clarity of mind, Jacque defeated the physically superior elemental after she became infuriated and lost her composure in the closing stages of the duel. Once Erica Leroux was defeated (again) but Jacque, who was not only a ‘freebirth’ but was not even of the clans, Ryan stripped Erica of her rank. He went to award the rank of Star Commander to Jacque but Jacque refused it, leaving the Star of elementals without a leader until they sorted out the situation.

31/03/3050. Day 128, 21:00

Samara Hellstrom and Ruin Dmitar went to interrogate Subaltern Simon Croft, who was partially cooperative and revealed that during the Invasion of Strata his grandmother had been impregnated by a Draconis Combine soldier. With this tainted heritage, his mother and then he had been blackmailed by the Combine into serving as informants.

Subaltern Simon Croft’s plan had been to set the bomb then be safely on-duty in the Zmey (which would have been partially buried but not destroyed by the blast and collapse) and he lamented that that would also have destroyed any physical evidence. He would also have had a ready made ally in that he was on duty during the landing (when the bomb was set to go off) and was ‘at risk’ (for a given value of risk) from the attack which would have offset suspicion. Or at least that was his plan.

01/04/3050. Day 129, 03:00

A transmission from the Atlantia Military Base was received by the Zmey, informing them that a ground expedition sent to the Gray Death Legion dropship discovered that the ships sensors had been destroyed by one demolitions charge, the second set in the communications system failed to detonate. This forced the saboteurs to attempt a coup, led by remnants of the Scholz Streikende who had hired on with the Gray Death Legion on Strata.

Ruin Dmitar’s motive was to control the ownership of the HPG station and also to acquire its recent records of communications to the Gray Death Legion, hoping to identify the persons behind the conspiracy.

Officiala and legitimate communication sent to the mercenary company via the Lyran embassy on [[Strata] regarding possible contracts.

Messages sent covertly to the mercenaries bypassing the Lyran embassy, apparently intended for the Scholz Streikende. It appeared this was part of the conspiracy aimed agaisnt Samara Hellstrom.

Various official communiques from successor states to the mercenary company regarding possible contracts.

Heavily encoded transmissions from the Draconis Combine to the mercenary company.

It was not clear if the Draconis Combine messages (presumably to Draconis agents within the Gray Death Legion) and those to the Scholz Streikende were related, if the two groups both acted, if they had acted individually, or if they had cooperated. The survivors in the dropship appeared to be from neither faction, and they reported roughly half of their battlemechs missing after the coup.

After discovering the two Star League Catapult battlemechs, the Hellstrom’s Hellions continued exploring ‘The Vault’.

Ingrid ‘Mouse’ Marsh found the old reactor and that it had been shut down, and proceeded to start it up, restoring power to that segment of the base.

Ruin Dmitar headed to the pilot’s lounge and discovered the corpse of Mechwarrior Long, designated pilot of the Gauss Cannon equipped Catapult ‘Steel Horse’. She had been shot in the back by an energy weapon, and went there to die looking out at her battlemech and listening to classic (Terran) country music.

The wet bar of the lounge was well stocked, including among other treasures a bottle of Glenmorangie from Terra (before the fall of the Star League) and which had been aged 70 years before sale then brought to Atlantia where it had waited (and aged) ever since. Many of the other bottles were independently valuable, for consumption, and others for historical value.

Jacques Dubois inspected the two battlemechs, and discovered the odd stealth systems fitted into each.

Samara Hellstrom sought out the command deck of The Vault and found it was geared primarily towards conducting covert operations and secondarily to a backup planetary command centre. She also discovered the base was named ’Liberty’s Price’ aka Fort Vigilance. The base was composed of three segments, the upper portion (now destroyed) including most of the buildings and the star port, ‘The Bunker’ which had survived but was now gutted by fire, and ‘The Vault’ which had sheltered the Catapults.

02/03/3050. Day 99, 20:00

The group met up, discussed their findings, then continue exploring. Samara Hellstrom and Ruin Dmitar inspected the crew quarters, looking for more information on the occupants of the base. They discovered the corpse of Mechwarrior Evans, pilot of the LRM equipped Catapult the ‘Summer Rain’. The man had died of radiation sickness, and it appeared he had been tended to by the wounded Mechwarrior Long.

Jacques Dubois and Ingrid ‘Mouse’ Marsh sought out the storage rooms and did a hasty inventory of the contents, finding a third set of stealth systems like the ones fitted to the two Catapults. They also determined that the missing battlemechs from the other two bays were a pair of Exterminators. This strongly suggested they were also stealth units like the modified Catapults.

Samara Hellstrom and Ruin Dmitar arrived at the exploration plane and retrieved more supplies (four days) and have the plane contact the base. The Hauptmann ordered the Zmey to travel to the newly discovered base, a trip expected to take eighteen days. She also send the plane back to base to retrieve more supplies and return with them. The plane deployed a beacon and lifted off headed for the Atlantia Military Base.

Professor Anna Morozov remained behind with the main three squads from Gamma Platoon and the Hammerhead VTOL for their ongoing role in the war games.

The cover story for the redeployment of the Zmey was training and exploration exercises.

The plane was to take the better part of a day for the return to the base, and another to come back to the beacon. Upon returning to base Samara Hellstrom conducted a military burial for the two fallen Star League Mechwarriors.
During the two days waiting for the plane Ruin Dmitar was unusually rested and at peace, and realised that he was having less troubled sleep while dwelling within the shielding of ‘The Vault’. Conversely Jacques Dubois became increasingly tormented by the period of isolation. He was plagued by hallucinations and later by dreams of facing an evil incarnation of himself, riding upon a steel moose, against whom he was forced to fight (luckily also on moose-back, riding Moose, his childhood nemesis and now spirit guide). This was possibly fuelled in part by Jacque resorting to the (previously opened) bottle of fortified vodka he had found in the wet bar.

05/03/3050. Day 102, 06:00

The Exploration Plane arrived with enough supplies for the Hellions Lance to survive comfortably until the Zmey arrived. It unexpectedly also brought a very irate Adept VI-Iota Michelle Abnett who was both angry at and worried for Ruin Dmitar. After chewing-out Ruin for running off where she couldn’t find and respect him, Michelle was chewed out in turn by Ruin who rebuked her for her inelegant effort to hack Samara’s communication to the Zmey two days earlier.

The trio returned to Liberty’s Price, with Samara and Ruin in the exploration truck leading Michelle who drove the cargo truck which had been delivered by the exploration plane and was loaded with supplies.

Day 102 to 118

While awaiting the Zmey the occupants of the base playfully antagonised one another in various ways. The base was made ready for the Zmey, in particular the full inventory of the storage areas, setting up a chain ladder and cargo winch from the bunker to the vault, patching the crack in the wall of ‘The Bunker’, and the demolition of the bunker’s fortified doors (which was a narrowly averted disaster).

Adept VI-Iota Michelle Abnett was grilled by Ruin Dmitar who discovered she had known a lot (but not all) about the base. Michelle had access to some history of the plant from Clan Wolf but many details, such as ‘The Vault’, were not known to her. She was able to give the name of the base commander, Marshal Andrew Sinclair, as opposed to the officer in command of the vault (and covert operations) Lt General Ben Hartford.

From Michelle’s account it appeared that Fort Vigilance had been split evenly between those loyal to Kerensky (and the Exodus) and those loyal to Stefan Amaris, who was the leader of the Star League despite the circumstances of his rise to power. Michelle unfailingly referred to Stephen Amaris as ‘the Usurper’.

Noting Michelle’s interest in Mouse, Ruin began to warn her off and insist Mouse not be recruited to either Commstar or the Wolf’s Dragoons (or Clan Wolf). Michelle revealed that her interest was to ensure Mouse could help the Hellions to combat Commstar, and the Clans if necessary. Though he detected some dissatisfaction with Clan methodology from Michelle, Ruin didn’t press the issue or ask her reasoning.

21/03/3050. Day 118, 08:00

The Zmey arrived at Liberty’s Price, guided from the beacon to the base by Samara Hellstrom. On arrival Dmitri Radchenko pulled Ruin Dmitar aside to inform him the DMI didn’t trust him and was suspicious of Ruin and how he had gained information about the location of Liberty’s Price. Subsequently Ken Tyler pulled Ruin aside to inform him the DMI had informed him they were suspiscious of Samara Hellstrom. Neither of Ruin’s informants knew who had tipped off the DMI.

Samara Hellstrom meanwhile recieved a recorded message from Hpt. Kommandant Dieter Herrman warning her of the Lyran Alliance’s suspicions of her, both for discovering the base and apparently for too closely collaborating with the Federated Commonwealth. In his classic style Dieter was not dedicated to the interests of his political adversaries back home and instead of following their request that he closely monitor Samara, he instead informed her of the request by their mutual opponents and bluntly asked her for information. Samara and Ruin worked out that the Lyran intelligence service had learned of the discovery on Atlantia by monitoring the DMI agents and their information network between Strata and New Avalon.

21/03/3050. Day 118, 10:00

The Zmey facilities began to be used to recommission and repair the ancient base, and to protect it if needed.

Moments after the communication, a personal communique for Ruin came from Adept IX-Epsilon Bryce Alexander who inquired about the location and condition of Mouse. Ruin Dmitar was incensed at yet another attempt to poach ‘his ensign’, and told the adept to relay the message that ‘The Destroyer’ would come for Commstar if anything happened to Mouse. Bryce let slip it was due to her father’s concern that he was asking, and this wasn’t an attempt to recruit Mouse.

Sent Communication: 01 May 2784.
Sorry for not writing sooner, mom, you know I am bad with dates. I’m sorry I haven’t written since Christmas, the time just really flew by. I promise to try harder in future. I’m thinking of staying on a second term here, I’ve made a lot of great friends in the last two years and really settled in. But I still miss you and my old buddies back home.

Personal Log: 12 May 2784.
The riots are worse, I thought it would blow over sooner. We only get the news feed here, we’re an hour’s drive from the city. No one seems to know what’s going on, what everyone is protesting and rioting about. It’s been nearly a week but it hasn’t touched us here.
All I know is it’s about some government or military decision or some new law. I guess with us being extraterritorial no-one felt the need to tell us.

Personal Log: 21 May 2784.
These riots have escalated to an armed conflict now. All those emergency drills and our disaster supplies don’t seem silly any more. I still don’t know what started all this, it’s like all the locals snapped and are out to settle all their old grudges all at once.
The supervisor thinks we should close up the station as a precaution until things die down, but he isn’t sure. We are in the middle of nowhere here, and haven’t seen any traffic nearby in at least a week.

Personal Log: 22 May 2784.
Still trying to piece things together from the news feed. It looks like the soldiers are involved. But it looked like they were fighting each other in one clip.

Personal Log: 23 May 2784.
The news tower went down, it got bombed or maybe hit with a missile. Only dead air and static left. What the hell is happening out there?
We lost our cable link too, someone cut it. I hope someone cut it and there isn’t a crater at the node.

Personal Log: 25 May 2784.
We’re all okay but whatever hit us knocked out communications. We don’t even know how but it blocked the HPG not just the regular communications. The cable is already out, we’re cut off.
The super is closing the doors and we’ll barricade them. This place was built as a nuclear bunker and that’s really reassuring.

Personal Log: 26 May 2784.
Susan’s little ham radio is still working. It’s just an ancient hobby, but, at least there’s a few people we can talk to.
All this fighting, seems to be going on everywhere. Susan says some of the people she used to be in contact with have gone silent, that can’t be good. The ones who are left are isolated, like us. Farmers on their ranges, things like that.

Personal Log: 29 May 2784.
Brad and James never returned, they went out looking for whatever is jamming us and they’re overdue. There’s something out there and now it looks like someone is guarding it. Are they trying to keep us cooped up here?
They’re still only jamming the normal frequencies, the ham radio still works.

Personal Log: 05 June 2784.
I think they nuked the city. We saw the flash and the mushroom cloud.

Personal Log: 09 June 2784.
Some of us are getting sick, the medtech thinks it might be radiation poisoning. If there was fallout from the city that might explain it.
The super thinks we can’t send out any more scouts. Whatever is jamming us is too far to find, that’s if Brad and James even found it, we don’t know.

Personal Log 11 June 2784.
It’s been a month now. Is anyone coming?

Personal Log 16 June 2784.
We saw a lance of battlemechs, they were in the distance. They had SLDF colours, they were headed towards the coast, maybe where the city was.

Personal Log 17 June 2784.
Jennifer ran off, she packed last night and snuck off this morning. Rumour says she got spooked by seeing the battlemechs, decided to strike out on her own. Or she went for help?

Personal Log 19 June 2784.
Another nuke, somewhere inland. I thought it was all farming land up there? It might be where the ‘mechs were coming from, I don’t know.

Personal Log 21 June 2784.
We lost two more to radiation sickness. There are only eighteen of us left.

Personal Log, 25 June 2784.
Jennifer came back, barely. She was talking crazy about her ‘mission’. I think she was close to where the nuke went off. She has radiation burns and can’t keep food down. I think she’s delirious from radiation sickness.

Personal Log, 28 June 2784.
I swear we would have let them in. There were about thirty, they weren’t military. They came at us shooting and we fought them. There were women and children, they attacked too, why didn’t they listen? We had to protect ourselves, they were wild. They looked sick, thin. We left the bodies out there for now. Where were they from? Why did they attack? Were they from the coast or the farmland?
After the attack, we have wounded. There’s ten of us left on our feet, four in the medbay, and Jennifer. We lost the doc’ in the attack.

Personal Log, 30 June 2784.
We lost Jennifer. She died screaming about her mission and needing to get off this world. She’s right, we need to get out of here. But there’s nowhere to go.

Personal Log, 2 July 2784.
The wounded didn’t make it. We don’t have a medic so we aren’t sure what. Internal bleeding perhaps, or infections. Ten now. It sounds too much like a count-down. These are people I worked with for over a year, we don’t talk much and sometimes when I see their faces I can’t tell which of my old friends they were.

Personal Log, 8 July 2784.
They nuked the bunker. We made it. Only five of us now, the rest were up top when it hit. Part of the top floor is wrecked, the HPG bunker looks okay, it held.
We are getting a distress signal from Clotho station, nothing from Lachesis. I think they both got hit. They tried to nuke all three HPG at once.
I don’t know why I am recording this. We got nuked a few hours ago, we got the fires under control now.

Personal Log, 10 July 2784.
We didn’t realize it before but the jamming is gone. Did the nuke take it out? It might have been some sort of device, and the nuke blew it up?
The HPG is still blocked though, we don’t know why. We can’t receive and we can’t transmit off-planet.
Clotho station is still sending their distress call, but it’s K-F, maybe no-one else can hear it? I wouldn’t want to let anyone know we survived the nuke.
Maybe the jamming is down so we’ll reveal ourselves?

Personal Log, 12 July 2784.
We’re staying underground for fear of radiation. We don;t even know what it looks like since the nuke went off.

Personal Log, 15 July 2784.
It hasn’t stopped! There are meteors all over the sky! They’re coming down in small groups, or, breaking up on entry, I don’t know. Three or four went down where I think the city was, and another group inland where the second nuke hit! None have hit us here but I don’t know if we’re a target! It looks deliberate, I repeat, looks deliberate!

Personal Log, 16 July 2784.
They are still dropping asteroids on us. Now it looks random, not targeted. I don’t know if they are aiming or not!

Personal Log, 17 July 2784.
It finally stopped. I haven’t slept in days, the constant noise, like thunder in our bones. We went up but couldn’t see much. There’s dust everywhere, we couldn’t even see ten meters. We didn’t stay long, because of the radiation.

Personal Log, 7 August 2784.
She was a carrier. She had the plague. I don’t know if it was a bio-weapon or a disease now. I’m using the gas mask but not sure if it will help.

Personal Log, 9 August 2784.
-Data Corrupted-

Personal Log, 12 August 2784.
I’m the last one left.

Personal Log, 14 August 2784.
I’m showing the initial symptoms. I only have a few days left.

Personal Log, 15 August 2784.
There are more outside. Or I’m hallucinating. I’m going to shut down the HPG system, now there’s no-one left to rescue. I don’t want to infect anyone if someone does send a rescue.
I think this will be my last report. I’ll leave my username and password to let people get access to these logs.
Goodbye. This is Michael Briggs, signing off.

Unfortunately the professor had not been able to make the mine effective over an acceptable radius, and instead had developed magnetic limpet-grenades that could attach to a battlesuit and then deliver a EMP and an electrical shock. The three prototype devices were designed to be attached to the backpack unit of a battle armour suit (preferably by stealth) and would disable a non-hardened suit.

After ‘dawn’ gloomed on the cloud shrouded world of Atlantia (taking the ambient lighting level from ‘pitch black’ to ‘moonless night’) the four verse four verse four test battle commenced. The mock battlefield was a circle, roughly ten kilometres across and composed primarily of empty shipping crates arranged on the ice sea which had been added to over the many years the Atlantia Military Base had been in operation.

The power balance between the three suits remained the same:

The Grenadier IID suits had the clear edge in firepower, but was slowest.

The Hellstorm HM1 benefited from the highest mobility (and only jump-capable suits) but suffered for lacking stealth armour.

The Gray Death Standard MkII suits had 10% less armour protection, and were weak in melee, but the only suits to feature improved sensor capabilities.

Jacques Dubois led the squad of four representing the Hellions and Special Project 17. He elected to hold position and attempt to elude detection, then to engage the other two factions once they had engaged one another. This did not go to plan, both other factions detected the non-stealthed suits and moved to engage the Hellstorm suits first. This resulted in them encountering each other on the final approach and a pitched close quarters battle erupted only 300 metres from Jacque’s position.

The Gray Death suits suffered under the superior firepower of the Wolf’s Dragoons suits. Jacque had his forces flank the Dragoons and help even the odds. The return-fire from the grenadiers forced the Hellstorms to withdraw. This became a feint to draw out the slower Grenadier suits. Meanwhile the fast and stealthy Gray Death suits used their edge in sensor capability to stalk the Hellstorms and the distracted Grenadiers.

In the confustion Jacques Dubois circled around one of the pursuing Grenadiers and attached one of the precious prototypes to the power-pack of the Grenadier, disabling it. He was then ambushed by a Gray Death trooper, and after a brief exchange of fire Jacque used his suits jump system to launch a flying melee attack, at the last moment opening the armoured fist of his suit to reveal the second prototype limper-grenade, which he slammed into the faceplate of the Gray Death suit.

Professor Anna Morozov was called in, and the cover story of providing medical aid became worryingly real now the discharge device had been attached directly to the suit’s helmet and the possibility of having shocked the pilot via the inbuilt neurohelmet system was weighing heavily on the professor’s mind.

A familiar voice challenged Jacque, using strange terms like ‘trial of grievance’, challenging him to ‘dismount’ from his armour and face her like a warrior, and accusing him of having cheated. Erica Leroux had forced her way out of her disabled Grenadier suit, and believed that Jacque had hacked the safety systems installed for the war games to cheat and remotely disable her battle armour. Unable to refuse the challenge, Jacque accepted the challenge.

Jacque and Erica squared off in near white-out conditions and darkness, both lacking cold weather gear but neither caring during the duel. They battled in close combat, but Erica showed the clear edge. Jacque honourably and resolutely refused to strike her with his now-augmented right hand, and suffered under a flurry of blows from the larger and stronger opponent.

Jacque landed a few blows, which Erica withstood easily, and was struck down by her determined attack. As he lost consciousness Jacques Dubois had a flashback vision of his early childhood, when he had been charged by a moose in the midlands of Strata. The moose had knocked him down when he tried to rise, twice, before the young Jacque had launched himself from the ground to solidly punch the moose between the antlers.

As the vision cleared Jacque saw the stunned looking Erica who had just witnessed the subdued ‘freeborn’ rally from his injuries and rouse himself from unconsciousness. Jacques Dubois fought with renewed vigour and with the strength of moose flowing through him (and/or a severe concussion) and laid low the trueborn Clan Wolf elemental.

28/02/3050. Day 97, 10:00

The duel and Jacque’s spiritual apotheosis served as a perfect distraction for Professor Anna Morozov to do her work. Upon Jacque’s return she gave the first of many repeated warnings about her limpet-grenades “Do not apply directly to the forehead!” She had however obtained the data she required and ensured the safety of the Gray Death Legion test pilot. She also took a sample of the ‘excellent physical sample’ (Erica) when Jacque brought the unconscious elemental back, Jacque however failed to see this was an act for some reason. The professor, normally obsessed with ensuring that Special Project 17 had access to the best possible pilots for some reason failed to enthusiastically leap upon the opportunity that presented itself in the form of a captured elemental.

28/02/3050. Day 97, 10:30

The combat had been cancelled upon Jacque dismounting from his suit. The unusual circumstances behind the two other suits becoming disabled had been detected but not understood by the monitoring systems used for the weapon tests. However Jacques functional suit reported the pilot disembarking, and the extreme risk of injuring an unarmoured combatant led to an emergency stop of the testing. Jacque sought out a referee and protested that he had not been ‘defeated’ and the ref’ agreed, after seeing and inspecting Jacque’s undamaged armour.

The negotiation with the ref’ provided the professor an excellent opportunity to make a covert departure.

Jacques Dubois became tied-up in the after-battle report process, clarifying his position that his suit had not been disabled. As a result the Hellions won the contest, all four Gray Death suits had been disabled, as had two Grenadiers, but excluding Jacque only one Hellstorm suit had ceased to function, this gave the Hellions a win of 3 to 2 and 0.

28/02/3050. Day 97, 12:00

Ruin Dmitar sought out Professor Anna Morozov to get a copy of her findings. He also let her know the elementals were not quite human and were genetically engineered. Unlike Jacque, Ruin noted her less-than-fanatical interest and realised something was amiss. Pressing her he forced the professor to reveal she already knew about the clans and their trueborns, and it’s why she had initiated Special Project 17 to try to ready the Inner Sphere for the coming clan invasion. Once he had her on the spot Ruin pressed, forcing her to reveal she knew because she was the daughter of a Clan Jade Falcon trueborn Mechwarrior and as such knew of the clans technology and capability but did not have the scientific or technical knowledge. She had grown up and chosen her path to do as much as she could to preserve the Federated Suns which had (unwittingly) taken in her mother and given her sanctuary, and to preserve the cultures and the freedom of the Inner Sphere. Also the reason that the professor could maintain her extended periods of activity, often exceeding 24 hours of active duty before requiring rest.

Not lost upon Ruin was the fact he had extorted this information from the professor using the threat of telling Samara Hellstrom, and that in addition to her previous displays of pinpoint accuracy with small arms (in particular a tranquilliser dart pistol) but had just confessed to being the child of a clan trueborn, both indications Professor Anna Morozov was likely a skilled and elite combatant. Conversely, this also explained why the professor’s social interactions were odd at best and alien at worst, she was raised by a mother who knew nothing or normal life outside the warrior caste of Clan Jade Falcon.

Ruin let the professor know that Clan Wolf and the Wolf’s Dragoons knew about the ‘stolen iron womb device’ and were seeking to recover it. The professor had indeed stolen it, but even after the other revelations she would not confess how she had arranged it. The iron wombs were the artificial wombs in which clan trueborns mature, and Ruin was left with the strong and disturbing impression the professor was using the iron womb she had stolen to mature one or more test-tube-offspring of Jacque and the ‘test subjects’ such as Min or her sister Blade.

Professor Anna Morozov met with Hauptmann Samara Hellstrom to inform her of the announcement that the weapons tests were in hiatus due to the live-fire problem and the over-gunned Grenadier IID suits. For the near future other tests such as mobility, melee potential, stealth armour effectiveness, sensor performance and so on would be continued.

Her real motive was to gauge how much Ruin Dmitar had told Samara Hellstrom, and she read that Samara seemingly knew nothing of Ruin’s discoveries.

Following the announcement Samara Hellstrom decided they could check out the coordinates for the AtroposHPG Station they had acquired from the previous station. The Exploration Plane was still available. With the continent of Atropos roughly 24 hrs flight from the Atlantia Military Base the Hauptmann decided they should set out in the morning, meaning they would arrive ready to explore the following morning.

Suffering withdrawal from alcohol, Ruin was feeling increasingly ill at ease. Knowing this may have placated Michelle…somewhat.

02/03/3050. Day 99, 06:30

The plane landed and the ground expedition consisting of the four Hellions set out using a modified ‘long range’ Burro truck (with increased seating and inclusion of enviroseal at the expense of reduced cargo capacity).

02/03/3050. Day 99, 08:45

The expedition arrived in the vicinity of the coordinates and commenced investigating. Following the artificial geographical contours of an old nuclear detonation crater the team discovered the HPG Station. Inside they found a makeshift morgue with 29 frozen cadavers in corporate uniforms and 65 in civilian garb. Most of the civilians and many of the corporate casualties showed combat wounds, but one civilian and a portion of the corporate dead showed no wounds.

The upper floor was offices, and unlike the subsidiary HPG station explored previously the upper floor of this station had survived the nuclear strike. The last document was dated 05/05/2784.

Once power was restored the team used the elevators to proceed to the next level down where one person had died. The corpse was found with a SMG in one hand and a note in the other. The note was the man’s user name and password.

The man had been the last survivor, his name was Michael Briggs and trying the username and password gave the explorers access to the his Personal Log. This gave some insight into the events of the Fall of Atlantia, but raised as many new questions as it answered. Ingrid ‘Mouse’ Marsh began infiltrating the computer system, and other than some odd data corruption it appeared the other logs confirmed one another.

02/03/3050. Day 99, 11:00

The expedition headed out looking for the site referred to in the survivor’s journal, and the presumption this was a Star League military base, or rather the site of one which was targeted by at least one nuclear strike and by orbital bombardment.

02/03/3050. Day 99, 14:30

Following the directions in the journal the explorers found themselves rising into the foothills of a mountain range. By a virtual process of elimination they found one road into what appeared to have been a restricted area, and followed it to find the entrance to a primarily subterranean base built into the side of a mountain.

From the outside it was clear the ancient fortification had withstood a direct nuclear strike to the armoured gate, and subsequently a near hit meteor strike. In fact the remnant was the vault, the upper half of the base and all surface structures had been vaporised by the orbital bombardment. The base had not survived the orbital strike, however, two cracks through the mountain range had opened the interior of the base to the incredible heat generated by the meteor strikes, incinerating most of the base’s occupants and then engulfing all that remained in an inferno.

The team entered through one of the breaches in the armour, and explored the interior of the gutted ancient fortress. They discovered amid the wreckage a battlemech scale elevator shaft leading down, though the lift had been reduced to slag. At the bottom of the hundred meter shaft however the doors had held and what lay beyond had withstood the ancient devestation.

The armoured vault at the base of the shaft proved impervious to sensors, much to Ingrid ‘Mouse’ Marsh‘s frustration. The Hellions advanced, gaining entry to a small strange chamber. The room featured an obscenely high security biometric reader and secured door, and a series of twenty holes at chest height on the semi-circular opposite wall. With her technical knowledge and her interest in the Star League era, Mouse quickly determined that any attempt to hack the security system or to cut (or blast) through the door would likely result in the vault’s contents being destroyed, and she also recognised this as a old Star League virtue challenge in which the virtue of those seeking entrance would be tested. Unfortunately, with no way to guess which virtue was being tested, no answer presented itself to her. By this point Samara Hellstrom and Ruin Dmitar were noting that Mouse was unusually rattled and flustered by something, probably her inability to unravel the technology based puzzle.

The explorers realised quickly that the holes were arm holes and there were two handles within, both just out of sight. The Hellions tried different holes and handles individually to no avail, until two had placed their arms in at the same time. At this point the test activated, locking both arms in place, and starting to gradually fill the room with water. With Ruin and Mouse trapped, Samara tried one additional hole and when she did Ruin was released. Ruin tried another hole releasing Mouse, and when Mouse tried one Samara was released. The pattern that when the third person inserted their arm the first was released was established. Jacque tried his cybernetic hand, which appeared not to register.

Realising that the trap would only trap two arms at once, Ruin inserted both of his arms to free everyone else. This, however, was the correct answer to the test. By being willing to sacrifice himself to save others, Ruin proved worthy. When the ancient mechanism detected the same person had put in both arms (after two separate people had been trapped) it signalled the test had been passed.

The secure door opened, revealing a darkened cavernous chamber within. Using the battle armour mounted searchlights, the four pilots entered and discovered a Star League era ’mech bay, two chambers were vacant but a pair of Star League Catapult battlemechs remained, standing above their discoverers. These were the prize the old Star League test was defending, and forcing entry would have seen the battlemechs self destruct.

One catapult appeared to have a conventional weapon load-out (for a catapult) but its armour looked odd, the other also had the unusual armour appearance and an unconventional design featuring a gauss cannon in place of the pair of large LRM racks.

However, there was no way the plane could carry a scout battlemech let alone one of these 65 ton heavy battlemechs.

The package had a computer printed note addressed to Ruin stating the contents would help him with his withdrawal symptoms. Although testing the contents indicated they were safe and likely would function to reduce symptoms of alcohol withdrawal, Ruin was incenses at yet another accusation he was an alcoholic. Due to his indignation and also the foolishness of injecting unknown substances, Ruin refrained from using the ‘gift’.

27/02/3050. Day 96, 07:00

The first day of war-games began. The technical team of the Hellions were tasked with setting up the first trial field, which was a mock urban combat scenario using spent cargo containers (from the recent cargo delivery to the Atlantia Military Base on the same Dropship as the Hellions arrived on). Having done so in secret overnight, CPO Lionel Barclay, Ingrid ‘Mouse’ Marsh and Ken Tyler were all quite spent by morning and were all ordered to return to base and rest (under the new ‘fatigue management policy’) by Hauptmann Samara Hellstrom.

While there Ruin was encountered by a apparent sixth twilight cultist who identified himself as a friend of a Friend. He was aware of Hauptmann Samara Hellstrom recieving a communique from Hpt. Kommandant Dieter Herrman but not its contents. Ruin Dmitar confided with a friend of a Friend that the orders were to secure the two mercenary factions designs for the Lyran Alliance.

When asked if he would have shared the designs with the Lyrans, A friend of a Friend wasnt sure but guessed not. Ruin Dmitar considered it entirely reasonable for the Lyran Alliance to do what it could to secure the designs themselves if their Federated Suns allies wouldn’t share the information.

Ruin made contact with the Twilight cultists and secured a stash of coffee from them.

On the return trip Michelle told Ruin about some of the oddities of clan command structure, and the fact any warrior with a last name (Like Gabriel Shaw) was one of the most dangerous 400 clan warriors. She confided some of the oddities of clan leadership structure that she had learned (from her contact with the inner sphere) were inefficient if not broken.

27/02/3050. Day 96, 18:00

Jacques Dubois was pulled from action before the live fire phase of the days activities by Professor Anna Morozov, and observed the hour of live-fire exercises followed by simulated-fire for the remainder of the testing day.

The Grenadier IID suits had the clear edge in firepower, but was slowest.

The Hellstorm HM1 benefited from the highest mobility (and only jump-capable suits) but suffered for lacking stealth armour.

The Gray Death Standard MkII suits had 10% less armour protection, and were weak in melee, but the only suits to feature improved sensor capabilities.

The resultant power balance was that the Dragoons Grenadier IID was the best performing design, the Hellstorm was the most manoeuvrable, but the Gray Death design was able to detect and ambush the Hellstorms.

Ingrid ‘Mouse’ Marsh found a circuit board designed to look like a proper replacement part but including a repeater to send any received communications over a short distance.

Ruin Dmitar checked the Hauptmann’s office and found it had been bugged.

During the day Ruin Dmitar and Michelle Abnett’s quarters were upgraded with biometric security. Ruin also secured a trapped security box from Professor Anna Morozov.

28/02/3050. Day 97, 01:00

While watching over Samara Hellstrom‘s quarters, Ruin Dmitar received notification the trap box had been sprung. He arrived at his quarters to find Michell absent and Ken Tyler unconscious on the floor. He had triggered the box after becoming suspisious why Ruin Dmitar had requested special security for his quarters immediately after he made contact with him as ’a friend of a Friend’.

Ruin and Ken discussed a lot of matters including the miscommunications leading to Ken’s discovery. (Note Ruin jack-potted on Investigation at this time).

28/02/3050. Day 97, 02:30

Since she was absent Ruin Dmitar sought out Adept VI-Iota Michelle Abnett and founf her tinkering with her power armour, She confessed elementals only need one to two hours of sleep a day. The pair discussed a range of other topics in the seclusion offered by the early hours of the morning.

28/02/3050. Day 97, 06:00

Samara Hellstrom and Ruin Dmitar met for a (now) scheduled morning coffee meeting. In this they confided with each other, revealing some of what each’s order had ordered them to. Bith shared some, but not ll.) of the information.